Justice for whom?: a discourse analysis on transitional justice in Syria -

Abstract

The United Nations (UN) defines ‘transitional justice’ as “the full range of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempts to come to terms with the legacy of large-scale past abuses, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation.” To achieve such goals, five official mechanisms are recognized by the UN to be employed in these transitioning societies. These include criminal prosecutions (the legal action against perpetrators of crimes); truth-seeking processes (such as Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, that allow for victims to face their abusers); reparations (monetary or material compensation for victims’ losses); institutional reform; and institutional vetting and dismissals (meant to ensure new leadership is fair and transparent). While the contemporary definition of the term is relatively new, the UN has been either implementing or supporting transitional justice operations for decades. Along with these operations, there has come great debate on how effective the UN’s approach is to achieving its stated objectives. This debate has come in many forms – whether scholarly discussions or discourses among local populations at the receiving end of such operations. At the heart of the debate lie contending conceptualizations of the meaning of justice. How do each of these discourses matter in the implementation of society-rebuilding projects? Whose justice is being implemented, and for whom? What does justice mean for those that it is affecting? Can one uniform definition of justice – as espoused by the United Nations – ensure the return to a ‘just’ society, or is it crucial to account for different understandings thereof? This research intervenes particularly within this debate. The purpose of this thesis is to conduct an analysis of these questions, attempting to explore their answers through looking at a particular case of transitional justice – that of Syria. The Syrian case is cru